YOUR CART

by Catherine Ghosh In yoga, one of the most important relationships we have is our relationship with our selves. This is directly connected to our relationship with divinity, as, at our core, yoga texts tell us that we are all made of the same divine substance. For this reason, our voice, and how we express it, plays a very important role in our yoga practice. Sometimes people find it difficult to express their voices in a free, uninhibited manner that reflects their most authentic self. Then, when they feel they have, their voices may unfortunately land on unreceptive ears, leaving them feeling alone and disconnected. If people go unheard for long enough, it may injure their self-esteem and confidence. Paul Tillich once said that the first duty of love is to listen. If we can’t even listen to each other, how will be able to truly hear sacred sounds? In yoga, sravanam, or hearing, is one of the main processes that quiets our minds and opens up our hearts to giving and receiving love. However, it’s not just a directive that applies to listening to ancient mantras, but also, to each other. Over the centuries, it has been the voices of women, even within the yoga tradition, that have been left most unheard. Over ten years ago I began research intent on finding yoga texts written by women. The scarcity of them was disheartening to me: I came across many writings by men, but not by women. In certain instances, Indic studies scholars even expressed suspicion that men in the yoga tradition had published the realizations of women as their own. The voices of the yoginis had been eclipsed. It’s interesting to note that the female voices that did survive did so in the form of poetry. Poetry seems to be the language of the soul. Its permissive perimeters make it the perfect vehicle through which to express spiritual experiences and journeys of the heart. It can describe places that exist outside our realm of knowledge and introduce us to new ways of perceiving reality and ourselves. Poetry acts as a doorway to the sacred, opening new ways of communicating with each other that are full of meaning and depth. For, much like music, poetry uses rhythm (among other means) to connect us with our spiritual core, and awaken our spirit. After making these observations, and in an effort to add more female voices to the literary trail of spiritual practitioners, I began a virtual community called “Journey of the Heart” dedicated to listening to, and honoring the spiritual insights in the voices of women. Although the women who participated in the project belonged to various traditions, together they formed a kind of yogic sanga, or spiritual community in which their hearts and souls felt genuinely nourished. And the way in which they communicated with each other was through poetry. As the community grew I received hundreds of heartfelt poems from all over the world that communicated dimensions and aspects of the sacred. The poems also created a dialogue with each other, that the women felt safe and comfortable participating in. The space we created together was a judgment-free zone in which insecurities were shed and voices were honored. Setting all pretenses aside, we spontaneously became each other’s friends, sisters, guides and inspirations. Something truly magical began to happen! The women participating began to feel more connected to their sacred core through the writing and sharing of their poems. This is the yoga of poetry. Two years later the participants in the project asked me to gather their poems into a book. And so in August of 2014, we published “Journey of the Heart: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry by Women”. To me, the book is evidence that yoga is being practiced all around the world, in all kinds of ways, as human hearts open themselves up to everything that touches them in life, as holding the potential to connect us with the sacred, if only we let it. For something as simple as the writing and sharing of a heartfelt poem can open our hearts, making them more receptive to sacred life all around us, and within us. Making us more open to yoga. Whether it’s as a means to express your yoga journey, or whether it’s as the inspiration you receive from reading the poems of others, poetry is a wonderful tool to deepen our absorption in yoga. I invite you all to incorporate poetry in your yoga practice, and find your own heart in the pages of our new book, as we explore the themes of muses, nature, light, darkness, transformation, relationships, sisterhood and divinity: some of the main arenas sensitive souls frequent as they tether their lives to the sacred.